Dear X,

I am trying once again to write a letter to you that may or may not say everything I want to say. I don't think I can ever say enough to you--no matter how much hate I could project onto you, no matter how much misery I could wish on you, no matter how much loneliness and depression I want for you, somehow it will never be enough, but do not misinterpret what I say: I do not wish you dead, in fact, I wish you a long misery-ridden life--a life in which you will never be able to look at yourself in the mirror without feeling disgust, a life in which you can never enjoy intimacy with another human being without feeling dirty and disgusting afterward, a life of insomnia, because the images you see when you close your eyes are too horrifying for anyone else to see let alone live through, a life in which certain favorite songs trigger such anger, hurt and frustration that you are driven to the point that raging tears are your only release; a life in which any one of the above trigger such physical pain that you feel your insides being torn out piece by piece. I wish you feel so disgusted with yourself that burning yourself in a hot shower only gives you the image of sterile cleanliness but in reality does nothing. I wish you nervousness and insecurity, that you pull your hair out at the root and bite your nails down to the cuticles.

I wish you all these things that I continue to live with, I wish you moral battles and inner conflicts.

You raped me. There is no magical thing that I can say or do to change that. Nothing will make it go away. No punishment, no retribution. I have conceded to the notion that there is no justice; there is no fairness. This was not an easy concession to make, and in fact, it is still difficult to accept. There is no reason that I should be victimized time and again for your anger at something for which I take neither responsibility nor blame. I am not ashamed of what happened to me, I will tell my story to anyone that will listen and if this helps just one person, I may be slightly more okay with having been raped. Not to say that I want to be okay, or is that to say that I will either forgive you or accept these assaults: I will do neither.

Forgiveness would come too easy. Forgiveness is something you would expect, demand and take without it being given to you, just like you demanded and took me, and expected me to do whatever you commanded. In fact, I am willing to bet that you actually believe that I forgive you, that I'd forgiven you a long time ago. I want you to know that this will never happen. There is nothing to forgive you for. You used to say to me "if you were sorry you wouldn't have said it" well, I will hold that against you--if YOU were sorry, you wouldn't have done it. Rest assured, forgiveness will not happen. Forgiving you would ease the turmoil I wish for you and that is something I do not want to happen.

Nor will I ever be okay with what you did. Being okay with being raped, accepting rape as a part of my life allows you to win. Accepting rape. That sounds like Sharon at age 17. I will not accept anything--acceptance is similar to settling and I will not settle for having been raped. I will settle for nothing. I will never accept it, if I do then I will also need to forgive you, and, as I said, forgiveness is clearly out of the question. You raped me. You caused me so much pain and nothing will change that. I know that you know this and I hope you never feel a moment's peace within yourself because of this but at the same time I don't want you to think I've stopped living--I haven't. In fact, I am so far from the person I was. I am much stronger, more assertive, less trusting, less open. I am much more independent and I'll be damned if I credit any of this to you.

I will tell everyone what you did to me. I will continue to do so until the day I die. I wish you the peace of a storm on the ocean, the love of no one, yourself included, the discomfort in aloneness, the career of an inmate on work release, the comfort of a homeless man on the streets in winter and a home rivaling only the worst of the cardboard boxes in December in New York, and the meal of a soup kitchen's food scraps.

I keep looking for an explanation; a reason and I found it today: something in your background made you determined to control another human being, and you made your mind up that it would be me, regardless of whether we stayed together or we broke up much earlier.

Not that this explains or justifies what was done, not that this is even a valid reason, but all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the truest, and the explanation is this--you are a deranged, unhealthy fucked-up asshole son of a bitch. I suppose I will have to accept this.

I have people who are helping me in dealing with this, and it's really not right that I need to lean on them, but unlike you, they will not tear me down so they can rebuild me the way they want to. They know all about you and share my hatred for you, and they are letting me work through this--support. Something you never thought I would have--imagine that.

Several people I know suggested that I write you this letter. Some of them are survivors and did the same thing. They told me that it helps. I am not certain what it is that I am looking for in writing this, maybe all I want is to have the final word in this--my way of saying Fuck You to you. My way of letting you know how much anger and hatred I continue to harbor for you. My way of castrating you because I cannot relate to anyone on a sexual level. My way of deafening you because I cannot listen to certain types of music, my way of blinding you because I cannot look at myself.

I hate you. You are a rapist. You hurt me. You nearly destroyed me. I am still recovering from what you did and it is a process. I will never forgive you. I will never give you that satisfaction. I will never forget--these memories keep me on the edge. They serve as my conscience.

I am trying to make this into something positive. I realized that at the very least I can now identify an asshole on site. I read people much more clearly than I did before, I can sense who to trust and who not to trust. It's as if I have developed a sixth sense about my surroundings, although I cannot stand silence. I hate being alone, I attribute this to you--the positives because in order to be healthy one must see good as well as bad, and the negatives because human nature just dictates that. Do not mistake this for forgiveness or acceptance--I already told you that's not happening.

You are a rapist. You will live your life knowing this. You will look in the mirror and I can only hope that you feel the pain of sodomy, you gag on the smell of your own sweat and cringe at the screaming of others and writhe at the thought of having your ass torn apart from the insides out just like you did to me.

I hope you learn what it feels like to be hit and go flying across the room and into the wall and to be told that you cannot empathize with the emotions of another.

I hope you can never sit in silence or in darkness and that something must constantly distract you because anything that doesn't will terrify you.

I hope you never know love, beauty or laughter, that you never enjoy Christmas or a snowfall, that you never see the beauty in autumn or the miracle of spring. I hope you miss out on all the beauty that life has to offer, because if you can only do this, you have at the very least begun to pay for what you did to me. You will never pay your debt to me, not through a miserable life, not through a lonely death. But in my own sadistic way, perhaps I can take a little comfort in your pathetic misery.

You raped me. The last time you did was on March 19, 1994. You did it deliberately to punish me. I know this because you TOLD me so--you told me that this was my punishment for YOUR anger. I hope that you spend the rest of your life in fear of the anger of others. I will never forget those experiences, they will haunt me for the rest of my life, but I must find a way to live with them in as much harmony as I can. I hope this is something that you never find.

sharon

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